Intel: Brain waves to control PCs by 2020

OCZ's NIA already offers a crude form of controlling some actions in games with your brain waves, and it seems Intel scientists at the chip giant's research lab in Pittsburgh are developing a more advanced technology that will require sensors implanted in your brains. The researchers claim this technology will enable users to open documents and surf the Web, dial phones and change TV channels with nothing more than their brain waves. The technology is expected to be ready for commercialization by 2020.

The scientists say the plan is not a scene from a sci-fi movie -- Big Brother won't be planting chips in your brain against your will. Researchers expect that consumers will want the freedom they will gain by using the implant.

"I think human beings are remarkable adaptive," said Andrew Chien, vice president of research and director of future technologies research at Intel Labs. "If you told people 20 years ago that they would be carrying computers all the time, they would have said, 'I don't want that. I don't need that.' Now you can't get them to stop [carrying devices]. There are a lot of things that have to be done first but I think [implanting chips into human brains] is well within the scope of possibility."